Central Ohio origami club advances Japanese art form

Tuesday

Jul 29, 2014 at 12:01 AMJul 29, 2014 at 11:14 AM

An origami artist, John Scully says, makes something out of the ordinary - taking a simple piece of paper and transforming it into a three-dimensional depiction of life. Scully, 52, is an organizer of Ohio Paper Folders, a central Ohio club devoted to origami that meets monthly at the McConnell Arts Center in Worthington.

John Scully sets a dollar bill on a glass table, brushing aside brochures and pamphlets to create a work space.

After several twists, folds and creases, he has made a butterfly — a piece of art with moving wings that he might stash in his wallet to later leave as part of a restaurant gratuity.

“It’s just a nice way to put a smile on somebody’s face,” the Granville resident says.

An origami artist, Scully says, makes something out of the ordinary — taking a simple piece of paper and transforming it into a three-dimensional depiction of life.

Scully, 52, is an organizer of Ohio Paper Folders, a central Ohio club devoted to origami that meets monthly at the McConnell Arts Center in Worthington.

Though founded just eight years ago, he said, the 140-member Paper Folders has become the largest regional origami group in the nation. As many as 50 people attend each meeting, at which experienced folders guide novices through basic patterns, and artists take turns teaching the group.

Beginning Thursday, the club will welcome about 200 artists from near and far to the Holiday Inn in Worthington for its fifth annual CenterFold Origami Convention. The four-day event features workshops and ample art displays.

The convention size, organizers said, suits the event.

“I want it to be more intimate,” said Monica Salisbury, Scully’s wife and founder of Paper Folders.

Dave Brill, a professional artist from the United Kingdom who will appear at the convention, said origami, like choreographed dance, can be taught using step-by-step patterns.

“People challenge themselves to overcome the limitations of the paper,” he said. “The journey is as important as the destination; it’s not just the finished object.”

Despite the hours they spend creasing, flattening, folding and molding, origami artists don’t count patience as essential to origami, a centuries-old craft steeped in Japanese tradition. (And no, their fingers don’t get tired or cramped, they said.)

“It’s not about being patient,” said Jared Needle, a professional folder from Dayton who attended the June gathering of the Paper Folders. “I actually enjoy what I do.”

And his passion shows.

Needle, 27, has designed pieces for the TV show House and has had work featured in a hair-care commercial. Until late last year, Needle — who has a degree in mathematics — was part of an Air Force research team building solar panels that could be folded into the size of a cellphone.

The intersection of art, math and science makes origami interesting, club members said.

Needle likens origami design to engineering and the paper folding to art.

“You kind of have to build a machine, almost,” he said. “The parts don’t really move, but they have to fit together a certain way.”

At the Paper Folders meeting in June, member Karen Tucker taught fellow members how to craft an open-box design, perfect for holding jewelry or spare change.

The 54-year-old Westerville resident and her husband Tim, 55, said they like functional designs.

Other folders, such as Gahanna father and daughter Todd and Emily Remer, simply find origami fun.

Emily, 13, enjoys showing off the finished works and teaching friends how to make the folds.

Richard Jarvis left the Paper Folders meeting last month — his first — with two open boxes.

Having folded basic origami as a kid, Jarvis began to recently pursue the hobby because he thought his nimble fingers would fare better than his not-so-green thumb.

“I’ve been trying to grow bonsai, but I’ve killed multiple trees,” said the resident of the Clintonville neighborhood. “So I decided, ‘Let’s do something inorganic. I’m not going to kill paper.’?”

His goal eventually is to fold floral and plant designs and, ultimately, to make paper bonsai, complete with delicately folded leaves and stems.

“Paper used to be wood, so it’s still trees,” joked Jarvis, 39.

Some origami designs can be folded in less than a minute, but others — such as Needle’s signature prehistoric amphibian model and his South Park cartoon character Towelie — take several hours.

Needle revels in the tedious process of pinching paper into peaks and valleys to breathe life into his designs, folding slowly and precisely.

Origami, he said, is “a puzzle where you have to create all the pieces yourself.”